A New Meaning to 'Paint Horse'

Of course everyone is fully aware of what zedonks, zorses, zonkeys, and zebroids are ...
'cause zebras and zebra/horse (or donkey) hybrids are seriously full of The Awesome. Especially the infamous golden zebra.

What's the big deal, you ask? They are all equids, just like horses, but way less domesticated and rideable.

According to an article, horsewoman Claudia Wide of Weye, Germany, believes zebras have a "one up" on horses, because zebras are able to naturally repel blood-sucking insects such as horseflies using their striped coat patterns. Instead of using the classic means of repelling the pests, Wide chose to use cattle paint and paint stripes on her horse to help deter horseflies.

According to Blahó et al., authors of "Stripes disrupt odor attractiveness to biting horseflies: battle between ammonia, CO₂, and color pattern for dominance in the sensory systems of host-seeking tabanids," published in the July 2013 edition of the journal Physiology & Behavior, flying insects such as flies and mosquitoes use visual cues to help find their next meal. Apparently, such flying insects find zebras have "reduced optical attractiveness" compared to solid colored animals. The study authors concluded, "This result demonstrates the visual protection of striped coat patterns against attacks from blood-sucking dipterans, such as horseflies, known to transmit lethal diseases to ungulates."

But painting every horse in your herd every day is likely not feasible, so I have to ask: Why not try zebra flysheets? Or, because I like get-rich-quick schemes, I should figure out how to create a modified car wash-/horse chute-like system that horses simply walk through to be automatically painted every time they are turned out ... if you want in, let me know!

About the Author

Stacey

Stacey Oke, DVM, MS, is a licensed veterinarian and freelance medical writer and editor. In addition to writing for equine publications, she contributes to scientific journals, is an editor of an internationally recognized peer-reviewed journal, creates continuing education materials for both human and veterinary medicine, and conducts biomedical research studies. Her primary areas of interest are musculoskeletal disorders, including osteoarthritis and nutritional supplements. Stacey lives near Toronto, Canada with her husband and three children.

Comments

The views expressed in the posts and comments of this blog do not necessarily reflect those of The Horse or Blood-Horse Publications. They should be understood as the personal opinions of the author. All readers are encouraged to leave comments; all points of view are welcome, but comments that are discourteous and/or off-topic may be removed.

Horseflies are sight hunters, if it moves, they will go after it no matter what it looks like.

Diane

27 Jan 2014 5:50 PM

I have an older horse with a short tail who gets bloodied by flies in the summer, no matter how much, or how often we flyspray, War Paint, CamphoPhenic, or WD-40 him. I have even made tails for him, trying to help him fight the flies. Here in VA, it is just too hot to flysheet, and he hates not being turned out during the day. It might sound crazy, but I'm desperate enough to try anything for him. Cattle paint and stencils just don't cost that much not to try them. At the least, it's an interesting experiment.

candysrider

29 Jan 2014 8:51 AM

As always, my great ideas are scooped by someone else! I had a "light bulb" moment a few weeks ago when I thought of the colored flysheet idea, but my twist was to market it to the horse owner who always wanted a loudly marked, colored horse, but was stuck with a solid! Loud pinto and appaloosa markings could be added to make your horse as beautifully colored as you've always wanted. I'd be willing to bet this is a money making idea- and likely someone, somewhere has already doing it.

melissa

29 Jan 2014 4:35 PM

Candysrider,

Have you tried Absorbine or Absorbine Junior? I use Absorbine on all my Appys and it greatly reduces the gnat, horsefly, and stable fly problems by about 80~90%. Since I live in SE Iowa, it's too hot and humid here to sheet also and this has been the only thing I've found that works.

Good Luck!

Tom "10horses" Owen

Tom

29 Jan 2014 4:52 PM

I have found that my black horses are cooler if they have light colored fly sheets. The critters seem to bother the black or almost black horses more than the chestnuts or greys.

Beverly

29 Jan 2014 5:21 PM

A while back I purchased a 'zebra' patterned halter - think I'll do my own 'study' on that. This is a very interesting article!

Kathy

29 Jan 2014 7:25 PM

Well laugh if you will, but we've found that 'striping' really works! In my country ( The Netherlands) zebrafly-rugs are now widely available! www.ej.nl/.../3310032

We've also seen a bunch of people who painted their horses but putting on a rug is less work!

Marianne

30 Jan 2014 6:11 AM

Tom,

Thanks for the suggestion of Absorbine, Jr. The CamphoPhenic works really well on the ears and face, and I've found it actually does the best for fly control. I add it to mineral oil and it lasts on my other horses. The menthol in Absorbine Jr I'm sure would work the same. However, my problem horse also sweats so badly that what ever I put on him is gone so quickly. Stripes might last longer, if he doesn't sweat them off, too!

Thanks again!

candysrider

30 Jan 2014 4:30 PM

My Cremello stallion rolls in mud and gets covered up over most of his entire body.

L

30 Jan 2014 10:51 PM

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